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Saying that he wants to "bring back real music," rocker Neil Young unveiled the PonoPlayer yesterday. Young put his high-end digital music player on Kickstarter with a relatively lofty goal of $800,000. One day later, his new device has doubled that goal, rocketing past $1.6 million.

The device is aptly described on Pono's page as a "Toblerone shape," looking about as long as an adult hand and reportedly weighing 4.5 ounces. It's packed with 64GB of on-board memory, along with a 64GB SD card. A small touchscreen, three physical buttons, and two 3.5 mm audio-out jacks round out the rest of the device. With no on-board speakers, video capability, or even pocket friendliness, this $300 device plants its feet firmly in its mission: to deliver higher-bitrate audio to the masses.

The campaign includes an 11-minute video of Young-era musicians like Patti Smith, Tom Petty, and David Crosby asserting how much "better" music can sound on a PonoPlayer. But the technical detail is mostly lacking from those musicians, as they merely assert that the device better replicates the sound heard in a music studio. In the clip, Young himself eventually talks about how much better music can sound at higher bitrates—not just CD quality, but 192kHz/24-bit. The FAQ section includes technical explanations about "zero-feedback circuitry" and hints about the device's digital filter and DAC chip.

What won't be music to Young's ears is the growing crowd of audiophiles who aren't convinced that higher bitrates alone do the trick. In particular, the xiph.org community, longtime backers of the FLAC file format, released an anti-Young salvo decrying the use of 192kHz audio as foolish at best and harmful to the source audio at worst. And while Pono asserts that music will sound better on any headphones or earbuds, the biggest benefits of PonoPlayer's high-res files will be lost on anyone whose cans don't have a nice handle on highs and lows alike.

Either way, $1.6 million has fallen into the laps of Young and co. (It's worth noting that $150,000 of that came from 30 backers who bought into a private dinner with Young himself.) The total number thus far might get music executives salivating, but their real excitement probably comes from the dream of a successful Pono online music store, where full album sales of higher-bitrate albums, according to a video on the Kickstarter page, start as high as $18. Time will tell whether the PonoPlayer and its online store will attain their launch estimate of October of this year.

$300? Sounds like a toy for the rich and ignorant to me. Perhaps if it has an amp capable of driving studio phones I can see a function for this but the high-bitrate and sampling claims are just silly. Certainly not something the average person is ever going to need or care about. For someone like me, who uses a pair of Sennheiser PXC 250s there isn't going to be any audible difference at all.

If this is such a great idea, why didn't Neil Young just finance it himself?

Brilliant invention in need of a problem. Hey Neil, not that you'll ever read this, but some people in your circle explained to you what's happening in the "Loudness War" and how that's really the largest detriment to enjoyable listening, right? I mean, the actual music itself could be responsible for the resulting listening experience in some fashion. To wrap up with one final slap of futility, how is Pono going to make Cream sound any better than it has for the past 40 years - does it have some kind of time travel function to replace their recording equipment with something better to justify this highbrow machine? Yeah, sorry Neil, hope your fans enjoy their esoteric novelty. For the record I'm not really too uppity about format because there's always something inherently complicated about the music creation, recording, and listening experience.

I find it extremely difficult to justify buying a dedicated music player. Currently I use my Fiio amp on my phone and it's very capable of producing decent enough audio on the go. I could have bought into this pre smart phone era but I really can't see the major benefit. I can already play high bitrate/FLAC audio, so while I'm sure this sounds better I don't think I care for the inconvenience associated with it.

Just yesterday I was reading about this, wondering, "How could there possibly be enough people who want to go back to having a phone and a separate music device?"

Now I'm confused.

Depends on how much you listen to music and how active you are on your phone. Walking through the office, it seems like everyone who does listen to music on their phone has their phone tethered to a wall outlet. I did the same for a while, then decided to get an Ipod classic. I now go about 3 - 4 days without having to recharge the ipod. Personally, I would wish they would come up with a 128GB Ipod touch (ive got ~60 GB space remaining on my classic) so I could dedicate all my app activity to the one device leaving my phone for (work) email, phone calls and the like.

I just wish this would spur more development in the direction of a new round of high-capacity players with more format options. No, I don't have space on my phone for a lot of music and streaming it all would eat up my data. Until bandwidth is cheap, plentiful storage is necessary.

Yeah, it will be 1999 all over again, we will barely be able to fit an album in the 8GB version...

I mean, I do like the idea of lossless 44khz/16bits being easily available (and possibly even sourced from better versions of the same music), but anything more than that is... useless. There is so much more you could do in software to actually improve headphones quality like HRIR, equalization and reverb.

...but their real excitement probably comes from the dream of a successful Pono online music store, where full album sales of higher-bitrate albums, according to a video on the Kickstarter page, start as high as $18.

You know, I was almost thinking this could replace my aged Zune until I saw this (well, in addition to the small size—only 64GBs? For a serious audio user? Don't make me laugh). Granted, I never used the Zune store either while still using the software (to this day actually), but another online music store? Which means I probably just can't plug this into any computer and put my music onto it without the software. I got used to it with Zune, but I'm of the opinion that at this point, I won't bother switching.

Ah well, sounds like some are fond of the idea. I'll keep using my Zune and waiting for something better to eventually exist (this may not ever happen).

$300? Sounds like a toy for the rich and ignorant to me. Perhaps if it has an amp capable of driving studio phones I can see a function for this but the high-bitrate and sampling claims are just silly. Certainly not something the average person is ever going to need or care about. For someone like me, who uses a pair of Sennheiser PXC 250s there isn't going to be any audible difference at all.

If this is such a great idea, why didn't Neil Young just finance it himself?

I think we all know the answer there.

For some projects, kickstarter-type financing is not about raising money so much as generating a buzz and an affinity group to proseletyze others.

To be fair, $300 for a purportedly high-end audio system immune to instability (zero negative feedback) is a steal in the world of people who buy $2000 AC power conditioners or gold-plated power cords.

Both as a former audio engineer who's nowhere close to wanting to travel in those circles (and as an owner of a $2XX iPod Classic because I can never predict what music I will want to access easily while jogging, commuting & flying), I'll be interested to see the critical and market reception. It'll likely be reviewed as the “best” portable player, even if inaudibly so, and perhaps expand the market for higher-bitrate audio, which heretofore has been restricted to those with too much money in their pockets.

I can see why this would be marketed at the iPod/handheld music player consumer space, and why people might criticize it on that basis...but when I look at this, I don't see "carry this around with you all the time" so much as "basis of a high-end home stereo setup that you can take with you from place to place." A lot easier to lug around than a stack of CDs, no? The Toblerone shape doesn't suggest being carried around in a pocket, but being put on a desk or table and plugged into some powered speakers. I'm not competent to guess whether there's anything to the claims of improved sound quality for this particular device, but if it lived up to the hype I'd be interested in it for home use rather than as a replacement for my iPod.

Does this thing have a decently capable amp? Something that can drive a good pair of reference-quality headphones?

I'd like to stop carrying a Fiio amp rubber-banded to my smartphone, but I can't figure out if the Pono includes such a thing.

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At least they added *some* technical specs to the kickstarter - last time I tried to figure out exactly what they were doing there was almost 0 concrete details.

I'd love to attend a listening party with one of these. It's nice to see a shift towards FLAC, and it *looks* like the design crew put some thought into the components (though I'm not an electrical engineer and there aren't that many details). Still, the feel-good marketspeak about "end to end ecosystem", talk-to-me-like-a-5yr-old mp3 explanation, and 24bit crazy makes it hard to believe anything they say.

I respect Neil Young as an artist, but he doesn't have the best reputation as a business person.

It's more than I want to spend; but having a portable player with enough capacity to store all my digital music as is (I need to transcode high bitrate files down to 128k to fit in 64GB) is appealing to me. I've got enough uneven sidewalks and sand covered road shoulders (anti-skid leftovers) that carrying a top end smartphone when out for a walk doesn't appeal due to the repair/replacement cost if it breaks.

If I knew about the $200 earlybird rate I'd've probably jumped without caring in the least about FLAC support.

1 - The target market _already exists_ : check http://www.hdtracks.com/1a - I would gladly admit that I would like more people than HD tracks to support this market, so I could obtain hi rez digital audio from more sources!

2 - Therefore the device has to add something new. I can already play apple lossless on my iPod and iPhone, so the ABILITY to play "hi-rez" audio isn't new or interesting. The device, to satisfy the "new and interesting" needs better playback circuitry. Like a high end headphone amp. A single integrated DAC which can play 192/24 sucks if it doesn't have a good amp.

3 - OPTIONAL: given the size of the device, why doesn't it have a 1/4" plug like my Sennheiser HD 595s have? It could have both 1/8" and 1/4" at that size.....

I gave up chasing higher fidelity. Above a certain sound quality threshold, a melody stands on its own. Higher bitrates won't make it a better song, at least for the type of music I listen to. These days standard audio outputs are good enough for people like me, and I'm guessing good enough for most people.

I do have an expensive audio video system. There's still controversy about higher bit rates. That is, uncompressed rates (which to most of us, but not all, includes lossless compression such as ALAC and FLAC).

Bit rates are moving to a crazy 32 bits, while sampling rates are moving to 384K, and even to 768K. It's nuts! But there are those who claim to hear the difference, even though the analog part of the system simply can't reproduce those high rates.

If Apple, for example, moved to 16/44.1 using Apple lossless, then most people would be happy. I've always believed, being involved with the industry for years, that 20/48 is the maximum that's of any audible value. But there are people who correctly state that higher rates can't hurt, and that drive sizes are so large, and so cheap, that storage isn't a real issue anymore.

But this player is such an odd shape. It's clearly not meant to be put in a pocket. Also, Mr. young is a very wealthy man, I find it hard to believe that if he really thinks this is a good idea, and that the company would be successful, that he couldn't have financed this himself, or gotten his other wealthy musician friends to invest with him. It just seems so odd that he would resort to this.

Does this thing have a decently capable amp? Something that can drive a good pair of reference-quality headphones?

I'd like to stop carrying a Fiio amp rubber-banded to my smartphone, but I can't figure out if the Pono includes such a thing.

I would be curious to see how smartphones compare between it other when it comes to lossless playback. Plus you need a decent pair of headphones to get more gains.

Anyone have a link?

I'd be curious too, but it occurs to me, most of the places where I listen to music off of my phone (or portable device) are going to be noisy (i.e. full of noise, not necessarily loud). Like the gym, or the car, out walking/jogging, etc. The only place I'd want to use headphones and have relative quiet might be the office. And if it's a matter of listening to podcasts or audiobooks, which is probably 90% of the audio use for my phone, it really makes no difference. Others, of course, may have different uses in mind.

I do have a good use case for a stand-alone portable music player--I taped mine to my treadmill, which has its own (crappy) speakers. So when I'm not watching TV on it, or listening to a podcast off of my phone, I have a fixed 16GB of music always ready to go. But crappy speakers, and as mentioned above though, it's "noisy" so again any real fidelity is wasted.

I can see why this would be marketed at the iPod/handheld music player consumer space, and why people might criticize it on that basis...but when I look at this, I don't see "carry this around with you all the time" so much as "basis of a high-end home stereo setup that you can take with you from place to place." A lot easier to lug around than a stack of CDs, no? The Toblerone shape doesn't suggest being carried around in a pocket, but being put on a desk or table and plugged into some powered speakers. I'm not competent to guess whether there's anything to the claims of improved sound quality for this particular device, but if it lived up to the hype I'd be interested in it for home use rather than as a replacement for my iPod.

An interesting perspective, but doesn't that just open it up to all kinds of other issues that a dedicated set-top style box would address? My point is that if "desktop" is the ideal type of use, then why not make it really impressive with some add-in type luxuries that aren't really necessities - maybe some little bouncing meters, some nice knobs and/or a set of sliders for EQ fun. Basically, what Akai did with the EIE was blend the retro with the functional and it's arguably a really good looking piece of gear. The only thing good about Pono's design is that they can do a tie-in and give them away in Toblerone packages, which, considering the price of this thing, is probably their desired audience in the first place.

...but their real excitement probably comes from the dream of a successful Pono online music store, where full album sales of higher-bitrate albums, according to a video on the Kickstarter page, start as high as $18.

You know, I was almost thinking this could replace my aged Zune until I saw this (well, in addition to the small size—only 64GBs? For a serious audio user? Don't make me laugh). Granted, I never used the Zune store either while still using the software (to this day actually), but another online music store? Which means I probably just can't plug this into any computer and put my music onto it without the software. I got used to it with Zune, but I'm of the opinion that at this point, I won't bother switching.

Ah well, sounds like some are fond of the idea. I'll keep using my Zune and waiting for something better to eventually exist (this may not ever happen).

I'd've liked a bigger capacity too; but no-one seems interested in offering it in a flash based player; and with the uSD slot this at least offers the option of at least 128GB (192 assuming 128GB cards will work) which puts it above current top of the line phones/iPods. And as of the last time I looked all of the other uSD based players still on the market (and really just about any player except the ipod) were really junky race to the bottom devices.

...but their real excitement probably comes from the dream of a successful Pono online music store, where full album sales of higher-bitrate albums, according to a video on the Kickstarter page, start as high as $18.

You know, I was almost thinking this could replace my aged Zune until I saw this (well, in addition to the small size—only 64GBs?

Re-read the article. 64 GB onboard plus microSD support up to 64 GB, for a total of 128 GB. Most likely, it will ship with support for 128 GB microSD, giving you 192 GB of storage.

The issue why digital music sounds like crap so often these days has nothing to do with the bitrate of the file, rather with the way sound engineers in studios are trying to make the music sound louder (because louder is always better) artificially, running headfirst into a concrete wall as the digital format's limitations saturates the entire file with mushed up sound channels that quickly become indistinguishable to the human hear.

You know, I was almost thinking this could replace my aged Zune until I saw this (well, in addition to the small size—only 64GBs? For a serious audio user? Don't make me laugh)..

It will accept a microSD card.

Forcing a split between music on the device and music on the card, fragmenting your collection. How will that be handled? Will the device software constantly shuffle files around? Play from the card? What about placing music?

Really, there should be no need for a card. We had 120GB MP3 players five-plus years ago. I have a 120 GB SSHD that's tiny sitting in my computer for my OS. A 64GB player says only one thing to me: cost cutting. My 5-year old Zune is a 120 GBs of space, why are newer MP3 players smaller? Especially one designed to hold higher quality pieces that will take more space. Pono is simply attempting to cut corners and pass extra costs onto the consumer. When they announce a 250 GB model at the same price, then they'll have a spark of interest.

Forcing a split between music on the device and music on the card, fragmenting your collection. How will that be handled? Will the device software constantly shuffle files around? Play from the card? What about placing music?

I have an old Archos player that seamlessly integrates content from the sd card into it's library. That shouldn't be a problem.